Happy birthday, Greg!
by mirdaishan
Summary: When Morgan finds out it's Greg's birthday tomorrow, she's a little surprised she never knew before until Sara tells her Greg doesn't like birthdays. Of course Morgan immediately decides to find out why by taking him out on his birthday... and pretending she doesn't know anything about it!


**Since it's Eric Szmanda's birthday today, I decided to do a little story about Greg's birthday! Just a quick one-shot, no spoilers or anything, just some Greg/Morgan cuteness! :) Enjoy!  
And happy birthday, Eric!**

When Morgan walked into her office at the beginning of her shift that night, she noticed Sara quickly hiding something underneath a stack of papers. When Sara saw her, she seemed to relax, though, and she smiled at Morgan.

"Sorry," she apologized. "I thought you were Greg…"

Morgan raised her eyebrows. "I didn't know we looked that much alike…"

Sara grinned. "Don't worry, you don't! I just didn't want him to see his birthday card before his birthday."

"His birthday?" Morgan frowned. "When's his birthday?"

"Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Morgan repeated, a shocked expression on her face. How was it possible she didn't know it was Greg's birthday tomorrow? She thought she knew everything about him by now – his favorite music, his ex-girlfriends, the silly things he had done when he just started working as DNA tech, what he had for breakfast every morning and even what his favorite pair of socks was – but now she thought about it, she indeed had never asked him about his birthday.

"He doesn't like big parties or things like that," Sara told her. "So each year we just write our names on a birthday card and get him a small gift, just to let him know we haven't forgotten about it or the fact that he doesn't like celebrating that he's a year older again… He usually just says 'Thank you' and then gets back to work. This year it's going to be a little tricky, though, as it's his day off tomorrow."

Morgan had already known that as she always memorized which days off he had (this month it was every Wednesday and Saturday, so Russell hadn't given him a special day off for his birthday). She now wondered if it was possible to change her own days off for this week… without Russell asking her why she wanted to change them of course. She quickly excused herself to Sara and rushed off to find her supervisor. He raised his eyebrows when she asked him if she could change her first day off this week from Friday to tomorrow, but didn't make a problem out of it.

"Of course you want to spend your boyfriend's birthday together with him," he did joke about it. She pretended she didn't know what he was talking about – as she always did when he joked about her and Greg together – before she walked away for part two of her plan.

She found Greg in the fingerprint lab, impatiently waiting for Mandy to run a partial fingerprint through the computer. She could tell he was making Mandy nervous by constantly looking over her shoulder.

"Greg, can I talk to you for a second?" she asked him.

"Please do!" Mandy immediately said with a sigh. Greg grinned at her. "Sorry… I'll let you work your magic alone, alright?"

Still grinning, he left the Fingerprint lab and followed Morgan outside. She looked at him with her eyebrows raised up high. "Flirting with the fingerprint lady now? I thought you only flirted with me?"

He looked at her for a moment, confused about whether she was serious or not, and then realized she was just teasing him. He smiled at her. "Well, there's no fun in flirting with you if you never flirt back…"

"Ouch!" she said with a grin on her face. "Alright, how about this then, Casanova: wanna go out for drinks with me tomorrow? I know this great place where they play live music and have the most amazing cocktails… They even have alcohol-free cocktails for the little ones like you!"

Instead of smiling at her joke, he frowned. "Tomorrow? Why tomorrow?"

"Because tomorrow's my day off and I know it's yours as well…" she slowly said. "Look, if you don't wanna go, then that's fine as well! I'll find someone else to go with me then!"

"No, no, it's just…" He stopped for a moment and looked at her. "That's the only reason you're asking me out for _tomorrow_? Because we both have the day off?"

"Yeah!" She gave him her most innocent look. "Should there be another reason then? Are we working together for exactly six hundred days tomorrow? Or is tomorrow the anniversary of the day we first flirted together?"

He finally smiled at her again. "Who knows… I'm still trying to forget that first time I tried to flirt with you! But tomorrow's fine then, I guess. Want me to come and pick you up?"

"I'll come and pick you up," she decided. "Is seven okay?"

"Perfect!"

"Great! I'll see you tomorrow then!"

The next day she rang the doorbell at his house at exactly seven o'clock. She knew Sara had dropped by a few hours earlier to give him his birthday card and gift, so he had already seen her name wasn't on the card. She didn't wish him a happy birthday either when he opened the door: she just greeted him and asked him if he was ready to go.

"Sure," he told her. He followed her to her car, looking at her ever few seconds. He continued looking at her in the car until she finally asked him: "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, no, nothing," he quickly said. He looked out the window for a while, but then started looking at her again. She looked back a few times, but then concentrated on finding a good parking spot for her car as the parking lot was nearly full already. Six laps around the parking lot later, she found one. They both got out of the car and after Morgan had locked it, they walked towards the entrance together. Greg was still looking at her every few seconds.

"Okay, that's it!" she said, stopping him. "What's wrong? You keep looking at me! Is my mascara on my lips or so? Do I have a coffee stain on my shirt?"

"No, you look beautiful!" He wanted to reassure her so badly he nearly tripped over his own words and then turned bright red.

"Then why do you keep looking at me?" she asked him with a stern tone in her voice.

"It's nothing, honestly!" he said, his eyes big with innocence. Then he sighed. "Okay, there is something. Why aren't you saying anything?"

"What am I supposed to say?" She knew perfectly well what he was talking about of course, but she didn't let him know.

"Something like 'Happy birthday' or something like that?" he suggested.

"It's your birthday today? I didn't know! Happy birthday! And because I forgot the first drinks are on me, okay?" she smiled. "What do you wanna drink?"

He followed her inside, clearly doubting whether or not she was telling the truth about not knowing it was his birthday today. After they had sat down with their drinks, she decided she still had to confess.

"Alright, I did know it was your birthday today," she told him. "But only since yesterday, I swear! Sara told me you don't like birthdays for some reason, so I decided to pretend I didn't know. But I am curious, though: why don't you like birthdays?"

"It's not that I don't like birthdays, it's just that…" He sighed deeply. "I don't like being a year older again… It just feels like I'm getting older and older without achieving anything!"

She stared at him in disbelief. "How can you say that? You've managed to go from DNA tech to CSI level three and…"

"That's not what I mean!" he cut her off. "I know that workwise things are fine, but… When I look around me, all my old friends from college are either married, getting married, having babies or sharing stories about the wonderful things their kids have done. And I don't even have a girlfriend!"

She stayed quiet for a moment, slowly realizing why he didn't want to celebrate his birthday.

"Every year at my birthday, I always think: 'Okay, this year everything's going to change – I'm going to find a girlfriend, move in with her, start our future together…' And it never happens! If I already find a girl I like, she either ends up in jail or dead… and the girl I really like just wants to be friends!" He turned away from her, knowing she knew that last comment was about her. She gently put her hand on his arm. "That's not true, Greg, and you know it. I do want to be more than just friends with you, but it's just complicated since we work together as well!"

He hummed a little as response. They had talked about this so many times already – they both knew they liked each other and they had even kissed a few times, but she never wanted to take it further because she was afraid it would ruin their work relationship.

"What do you want me to do then?" she asked him. "Ask Russell to put us on different cases every time? Change to Dayshift?"

"No, I just want you to give us a chance without making a big deal out of it!" he almost shouted out. "Why does it have to be such a big thing? It's not like we're the first people in the world to work together _and_ date… We can just…"

"Okay."

Surprised, he looked at her. She smiled at him before leaning in and quickly kissing him. "You didn't hear wrong, I really did say 'Okay'. You're right, I shouldn't make such a big deal about it. I'm sorry for having done that for such a long time… Can I make it up to you?"

He looked at her for another few moments. She looked back at him with her sweetest smile, her beautiful eyes full of love and her fingers wrapped around his hand. Slowly, a smile appeared on his face. "I think I might have a few ideas about that…"

Grinning, she leaned in to kiss him again. "I figured you might! Don't worry, I'll do anything you want! It is your birthday after all… Happy birthday, Greg!"

"Thank you!" he whispered in her ear before responding to her kiss. Suddenly he didn't mind it was his birthday at all anymore…


End file.
